My trip to hell on earth Pt. 2

A short bus ride took us to the Auschwitz I museum. It is very different from the extermination camp a few minutes ago. Aushwitz used to be military
barracks for the Austrian army, so the compound was constructed, high brick houses and organized streets throughout. The entrance to the camp is
famous for its welcoming sign (photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net...) in English:
"work is liberating". We walked between the brick houses trying to compare between this and what we have just seen, this place looks like a normal
neighborhood. In this museum there is much evidence of the Nazi terror; things no one would believe could be done to people. There are many visitors
here. Inside one of the building, called "blocks" are windows full of findings. Mountains of glasses
(photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net...), each representing a pair of eyes behind
them. Artificial limbs (photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net...), you would not
normally think that there are so many people with these things, but when the people are gone and their plastic and wooden feet are left, you can see
the contrast. Kitchen-ware (photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net...), the Jews
brought to Auschwitz were convinced over and over again that they are just being "relocated" or "transferred to a new settlement in the east",
they brought their lives with them, pot and pans and silverware and cups. Talitot
(photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net...), No religious Jew would be found without
one. More mountains of shoes (photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net...), as if the
900,000 shoes in Majdanek were not enough. The disinformation tactics used by the Nazis had the purpose of minimizing the chance of a mass panic,
because it would be devastating to the order and clockwork of the Germans. While boarding the transport trains from all across Europe where the Jews
came from they were told to mark their luggage and that they would receive it upon arriving at their destination. So predictably, there are also giant
amounts of suitcases (photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net...), marked with Jewish
family names. It does not end there. In another room, separate from the property is human hair. Amounts unimaginable. The huge amounts of hair
(photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net...) from the Shavings done in the camps.
(photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net...). Not horrible enough. When your standing
in front of so many strands of hair shaved from the victims you don't know how to feel or what to think. Then once you see this
(photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net...) , A rug braided out of human hair you
start to feel angry, this was at least my approach.

. It's a mixture of sorrow and sadness, hate and vengefulness. It's a feeling you wish you never had to feel. There are many more rooms with many
more exhibits behind many more glass windows. I've seen receipts for the purchase of 100,000 Reichsmark's worth of Zyklon B, I've seen the plans
for Aushwitz and the hut rows in Sobibor, dolls that were once in the hands of children. Pictures of starving people, I will not post these pictures
of the mountains of bodies pushed by a tractor, or the cartloads of corpses dumped into mass graves. Even videos taken by S.S. men of the murders and
horrors. The people in the pictures were nicknamed "Muzzlemen", People who have lost the will to live. Starving people, you can see their bones and
joints past their almost transparent skin. Little children in the state of starvation, and not one, a hundred, or even ten thousand. As stated in this
memorial back at the graveyard from day 1
(photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net...) "In the memory of 1 million Jewish
children that were murdered by German Nazis 1939-1945".
There is a limit to the amount of this that you can see in one visit, one day or even a lifetime. But we didn't stop at the limit and continued to
the next Block.
Block 10 was the medical experiment house run by Josef Mengele himself.
(upload.wikimedia.org...). The windows on the
side are boarded up. Not because the building is falling apart, but because while the camp was running Mengele didn’t want people seeing what was
happening inside, and so they could not hear the painful human experiments. The house is now empty; the medical tools were taken from Auschwitz by the
Red Army to a nearby hospital where they were used to treat injured troops. It may be empty of staff and accessories, but it is full of stories. The
tour guide told us as follows: during the arrival of a transport from the west to Auschwitz, Mengele, as he commonly did was waiting at the selection
point who will work and who will die by pointing his finger left or right. He saw a young woman around the age of twenty and questioned her. After
learning she was pregnant she was taken to the medical experiment building- Block 10. Mengele waited until she gave birth to her daughter. His
experiment is as follows, he strapped the woman's chest, depriving the child of his mother's milk and creating great pain in the mother's chest.
The strap would not come off. Every day the baby cried weaker and weaker, until she was too weak to cry anymore. Mengele was examining two things,
the first was how long a baby could survive without the mother's milk, and the other was what would happen if a lactating mother would not nurse her
child. After about a couple of weeks a nurse came to the mother in agony, and presented her with a syringe of morphine, she told the mother to put her
daughter out of her misery, and that she is a young women that can still raise a new family. The mother could not bring herself to do it, and a few
days later the baby girl died of starvation. Mengele found out that the nurse was "sabotaging" his experiment and he had her sent to the nearby
death camp. The mother survived Block 10. She survived the Holocaust and the war, and she moved to Israel onto a commune and started a new family. She
died of old age few years back. I'm sorry I cannot remember the name, but there sure is one.
There is another survivor from Block 10, who claims that Mengele would put Jews in giant ovens, and examined at what temperature the body would suffer
first, second and third degree burns.
Those were two stories, just two. If that amount of evil was done, try to imagine what else he "examined".

We left the side of Block 10 and went to Auschwitz I, the first crematorium
(photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net...), and among the most advanced in killing
techniques.
We went inside (photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net...) and walked through empty
and small rooms. There is a memorial inside the building that reads: "In the memory of the people tortured and murdered within these walls by the
S.S."
Outside was the camp's execution yard (upload.wikimedia.org...).
The only person hung on the noose there was Rudolf Hoss, the camp commandant who was executed on April 16, 1947
We left Auschwitz I, towards the buses. We all sang songs about Israel, the anthem, and "Am Israel Hai" – The Jewish people live.
We slept well that night only because we were tired from the day; otherwise I think I wouldn't ever sleep after a day like that.
That was day 5. It was overwhelming and difficult to explain or understand. Thank you for reading day 5.

Day 6.
We travelled in the morning to Kielce, to the Jewish cemetery there. Around 20,000 Jews were transported from Kielce to Treblinka, or other death
camps. Some survived and returned to Kielce.
We were acquainted with polish youth our age. They were with us in the cemetery
(photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net...).
The story of this grave goes like this: After the war Jews returned to their home in Kielce. The Poles did not like their returned, and welcomed them
with an attitude of "what, you're still alive? We thought Hitler got all of you".
One day a polish child from the village went to a neighbor village for three days, and a panic started concerning his whereabouts. Looking for a
scapegoat, the local Polish community blamed a Jewish Auschwitz survivor with the kidnapping of the child. The survivor was mentally ill and scarred
after his experience in the death camp, and was an easy target. A pogrom pursued. The Poles killed 42 Jews because of the incident. Here
(photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net...) Is their memorial, in English: "Here lay
42 holies that were murdered on the 5th of Tamuz (consult your Jewish calendar) 1946 in Kielce. May god have vengeance!".
The Holocaust for some was never over.
The Polish youth held a ceremony in their honor for us
(photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net...), and sang a Jewish prayer for the Jews
killed there. We accompanied them to their school; we were welcomed beautifully and had a great time with them. They feel terrible and responsible for
the actions of their previous generations.
We spent the afternoon in the city with them
(photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net...).
We left the Polish youth and went on to Radom, A city near Warsaw. During the Nazi occupation there were 280,000 Jews in the Radom district. The
ghetto in Radom was plagued with disease and starvation. 6000 Jews from the Radom ghetto that held 25,000 were sent to Treblinka in 60 train cars (100
per car) on August 6th 1942. Two weeks later the entire ghetto was sent to Treblinka. 4000 Jews survived the transports. The remainders were sent on
June 26th 1944 on a death march to Tumaschov, were they were sent to Auschwitz.
300 Jews survived the Holocaust and returned to Radom. Only 2 families intact.
When they returned the local Poles slit the throats of 9 Jews strapped to chairs. Out of hate, simply more hate because (Sarcasm – a natural
emotional defense mechanism-) there was just not enough hate in the world already. A warning went out to the rest of the Jews to leave Radom or suffer
the same fate as the nine murdered.

I haven't finished reading your post yet, but so far it's very interesting, if obviously depressing.

I haven't finished reading yet however i have a question. As you a school student in Israel, how much of the study of the holocaust relates also to
the deaths of for example, poles, slavs. gypsies etc, rather than just Jews.

Please don't misunderstand what i am saying. It's just that i feel many times these other victims are forgotten. The deaths in the holocaust amount
to around 11 million, rather than just the six million.

I think it's very important to remember all the victims rather than focus exclusively on a particular set of victims. My comment is not intended to
belittle the memories of the victims in any way.

I had a chance to visit Auschwitz a few years ago, but i didn't want to. I felt it would be very disturbing.

When it comes to the matter of Israel on this site many people are divided and i think you'll get a lot of comments showing that.

To be honest i dislike the Israeli government, but i certainly don't have anything against Jews. The holocaust is an important subject. We might say
never again, but sadly it's already happened since.

For those of you that cannot bear to hear this person experience at these evil places read something else. I'm tired of listening to all of the
anti-Jewish whining. You have no idea what these people really went through and I hope for your sakes your never have to find out because I do not
think you would have the strength and fortitude to experience 1% of the suffering.
None of what happened to the Jews, gypsies, etc. should happen to anyone, ever! Sadly, mankind's history is replete with evil such as this worldwide.
And sadly it even continues today. So try to open your mind and learn something from this first hand account of an experience not many of us will have
from someone who has recently experienced it.
If you don't learn anything from this story you may end up being someone who is stupid enough to believe that someone or some group is responsible
for your pathetic life. The life you screwed up through your own bad choices. Then you'll end up being the one exterminating those that you fear.
You'd be the murderer, the torturer.
Celebrate that this young person has the courage to share his story with you.

Oh and for those of you who may be inclined to deny that the Holocaust ever happened like that idiot in Iran I hope you one day get to experience a
little of what they DID experience. Then see if you can deny it. Or at the very least I hope you get a nasty, slow moving flesh eating bacteria. Get
you H1N1 shot maybe it's in the vial just waiting for you!

I see how this is confusing. Here in Israel we do have standardized tests regarding the Holocaust, and the all include the killing of many
ethnicities, the New order of Europe as planned by the Nazis, I guess it is especially Jew-oriented because we are Jewish, but I promise you I know of
the other atrocities and realise this wasn't solely against Jews

I've been to Sderot, which has been under rocket fire for 8 years from Hamas in Gaza, close enough. Gaza is not a living hell, DO NOT COMPARE TO WHAT
I HAVE POSTED.
They get gasoline, water, electricity, television, cellphone and landline service and even internet from Israel.
the pictures that you see are mostly fake, I know soldiers that fight the Hamas in Gaza, and the only enemy of the citizens there is their terrorist
brothers.

I saw those pictures again and just thought of asking, the whole prison and artifacts, items seem to be well preserved but why are the seperate
glasses, utensils, shoes etc. are not. They seem just to be lying in a brazen manner. Were these things placed in this manner only or were collected
from whole prison (diff rooms and areas of the prison) and put in 1 room. Also why the picture shows the hair in white and not black? Does it have to
do with camera flash or because it's hair of old people?

Also I read a great deal about Mengle and his experiment and even saw various pictures but seeing the picture again taken by you of the entrance of
building kind of refreshes the memory of what happened there. Again, thanks for sharing your experience.

The block and the whole camp is now a museum, so everything is neatly organized behind glass.
I'm not sure about the hair, there could be several reasons, ven though i do recall seeing blonde braids and darker hair.

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